Picked it up at Euroville release a few weeks ago, it's even managed to get me off Midnight Club 3 for a few hours
I'd say it's the best in the series so far - having officers appear at their roughly correct points in the timeline mission-wise was a good step, as was sticking to the story for once when people are supposed to die (except when playing through as the main commanders). They seem to have upped the visible soldier limit too! Shame there's no Japanese voice option, some of the voice acting is ... hideous.
I've been addicted to the Dynasty Warriors series since my friend brought over 3 when it came out. For DW 5 I actually got the Japanese Treasure box version. It came with the game, post cards, the soundtrack, an art book with art of all of the officers, and a figure of LuBu.
I picked up the first Shin Sangoku Musou (Dynasty Warriors 2) as soon as it came out and I loved it. It was a fantastic way to show off my Japanese PS2 (which I shelled out tons of cash for) and a great game to boot. I bought the sequel and really enjoyed that too...
But I just can't bring myself to buy any more games in this series. They're all good, but they're just too similar. I even bought Samurai Warriors because I thought the Japanese theme might bring some variety, but alas... I love playing as Hattori Hanzo (yay ninjas!) but it was still more of the same. I think everyone should play at least one of these games, but one is plenty.
Waiting on the Xbox version. There's no way I'm subjecting myself to the English voice acting. :p Better image quality will be nice, too. I'm fairly new to the series, but I've been finding a lot to like (in DW4 Empires specifically) where I didn't expect it.
Really hoping they bring out a DW5 Empires after XL comes out (or maybe even combine the two releases..?).
